


Brave Little Puppy

by Door



Series: Beacon Hills Pack [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, werewolf babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Door/pseuds/Door
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little fluffy thing.  Stiles & Derek take their kid to the doctor.</p>
<p>
  <i>"Claudia didn't actually need the shots, being a werewolf, but she needed the paperwork that came with them, and Melissa McCall could only sign off on so many medical things before someone started to suspect something hinky. According to Derek, he and his siblings had all done this same rigmarole before starting preschool. Apparently there was a grand werewolf tradition of unnecessary inoculations."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave Little Puppy

Stiles remembered Scott telling him once about some of the dogs who came into the clinic. Overwhelmed by the strong and unfamiliar smells, they would bury their faces in their owner's armpit to drown them out. Stiles shifted his daughter so that her splayed limbs were in a slightly more comfortable position and reflected wryly that he'd be better off not repeating that observation to Derek. He sat next to Stiles in the waiting room, looking at where Claudia's face was smashed beneath Stiles' arm with an affectionate little smile.

And well, Stiles thought, if Scott hadn't made the connection with his own wolfy children's actions, he wasn't going to enlighten him. A conversation better left un-had, all in all.

Claudia huffed a sigh, and Stiles stifled a chuckle. He might say something to Allison, though. She was, after all, his partner in humanity in their weirdo werewolf group marriage.

Well, it wasn't a group marriage, not really. But there was a fair about of pack co-parenting, and the human spouses met up for coffee to trade stories a lot. Sometimes Lydia and Danny joined them. Lydia wasn't married to a wolf, but she had lots of experience with them, and if there was one thing Lydia loved, it was feeling superior while her friends complained about things she had wisely chosen to avoid. Danny tended to observe, then took the horror stories he heard back to Ethan for ammunition whenever either of them felt the tick-tock of a werewolf biological clock.

"Hale?" the nurse called out, and Stiles and Derek stood in unison. Claudia started to slip from her precarious position, and Derek reached over to heft her to his shoulder. She gave a whine and reached for Stiles. Stiles grabbed onto one of her small hands and smiled encouragingly.

"We're getting there, kiddo. Just gotta see the doc, then we're on our way to donut city: population us."

"Donut," Claudia echoed with longing, and Derek chuckled.

It was a lucky break that their pediatrician was a block away from their favourite place for donuts, a coincidence that Stiles and Derek had decided to take full advantage of.

Claudia buried her face in Derek's neck the moment they sat down in the examination room, and the nurse wisely made no attempt to separate them. She bustled around the small room, chattering cheerfully at them as she set up the tools the doctor would be needing.

Claudia didn't actually need the shots, being a werewolf, but she needed the paperwork that came with them, and Melissa McCall could only sign off on so many medical things before someone started to suspect something hinky. According to Derek, he and his siblings had all done this same rigmarole before starting preschool. Apparently there was a grand werewolf tradition of unnecessary inoculations.

Stiles was mainly concerned that Claudia would heal the punctures from the shots too quickly, but Allison had assured him that their oldest boy had had no trouble with it (too busy reacting to the pain to think of healing, probably), and if a child of Scott's was capable of faking it, then Stiles' little girl _definitely_ could.

The nurse finished prepping the room just as Dr. Chu came in. Stiles liked Dr. Chu. She wasn't aggressively cheerful the way he remembered his own pediatrician being, but exuded a perpetual sense of calm. A small smile made its way across her wide face as she spotted Claudia, who had practically burrowed into Derek's shoulder.

"She's got a sharp nose," Stiles explained. "I think the smells here bother her."

"They're not great," Dr. Chu agreed. "If I had a shoulder like your papa's to hide in, you can bet I'd be doing the same thing."

Claudia turned her face slightly to regard the doctor, and Stiles knew Dr. Chu had won points by remembering to refer to Derek as "papa." It was one of the first things she'd asked them, when they'd brought in their dark-haired, schrunchy-faced baby, how they were going to refer to each other. She'd noted it down and had never yet gotten it wrong. Which was fortunate, as three-year-old Claudia had turned out to be something of a stickler about it. About a number of things, actually.

("Look at Daddy's little perfectionist," Lydia had cooed the first time she heard Claudia correct one of them about something.

"Don't you put this on me," Stiles had said, glancing at Derek in mock alarm.

Derek had grinned back, but it was mostly teeth.)

Dr. Chu explained to them which shots Claudia would be getting, and Claudia gradually turned herself in Derek's lap until she was facing the room. She had one small hand braced on Derek's arm, and kept the other in Stiles'. Stiles knew that Derek was deliberately being as still as he could in the hope that Claudia would follow his example. He would take some of the pain if he felt it was necessary, but they were both hoping it wouldn't be.

Stiles had been all about Derek zapping Claudia's pain when she was a squalling infant, but apparently that wasn't really done in werewolf tradition. If your kid didn't learn how to deal with pain early on, it was in for a rude awakening the first time it skinned its knee and Papa Werewolf wasn't around. Stiles understood the logic, but it was hard to remember when his baby was screaming in pain.

So they'd applied the magic werewolf pain-stealing technique as little as possible during Claudia's three years of life (they'd cheated while she was teething, and any werewolf parent who claimed not to have done the same was lying and that was all there was to it), and it seemed to be paying off. Claudia had a much higher pain tolerance than human kids her age but she'd definitely figured out that certain things hurt and she ought to avoid them.

Still, they'd explained to her what a shot was, and she made no move to evade Dr. Chu when she reached for Claudia's arm. Stiles released her hand, but moved his to rest on his daughter's knee. She was regarding the syringe with caution, but not fear.

Stiles squeezed her leg once in support. Brave little puppy.

Claudia made it through the shots without clawing a single person's eyes out. She was relatively quiet, too, only starting to whine after the second shot. Derek gave a little rumbly growl, deep in his chest, and that seemed to silence her. If Dr. Chu or her nurse noticed the sound, they didn't mention it.

Once it was over, Stiles picked out band-aids decorated with turtles (they'd seen one in the woods on their last nature romp, and she'd been fascinated with them ever since) and quickly covered the healing marks. Claudia crawled out of Derek's arms and across his lap to bury her face in Stiles' armpit again. Derek gave him an arch look, and Stiles could tell he was biting back a laugh.

"I've never had a patient her age stay so quiet during shots," Dr. Chu commented to Stiles.

"Yeah, she's got a pretty high pain tolerance," he said, rubbing a hand over Claudia's back. She was still whimpering a little. "Also I think stoicism is coded in her DNA," he added with a glance at Derek.

"Ha ha," he responded, and Dr. Chu snorted.

The nurse brought them the paperwork they needed for Claudia's nursery school and Dr. Chu signed off on the relevant lines. She sent the nurse back out with copies for their files, then turned to hand the originals to Derek.

"There," she said, "that should keep them off your backs for awhile."

"Excuse me--" Derek started to say, but Stiles cut him off.

" _Thanks_ , that's _terrific_ , Doc." And he hustled them out the door.

Stiles took Claudia outside while Derek dealt with their insurance co-pay. She perked up as soon as they were away from the oppressive smells of the clinic, and Stiles had her on his shoulders, pretending they were Godzilla and stomping buildings/mushrooms in a nearby patch of grass when Derek came out.

"Papa Imma giant lizzar!" Claudia cried when she caught sight of him, and he kissed her knee where it rested on Stiles' shoulder.

"You sure are," he said, and laughed when she roared at him. He waited until they were halfway to Da Beast Donuts before he hissed at Stiles. "What in the world was that about?"

"She _winked_ at me, Derek. She _knows_."

"How could she know? Did Scott tell you she knew?"

"No! And even if he forgot, Allison _definitely_ would have mentioned she was sending us to a werewolf-savvy pediatrician."

Derek mulled that over. "Maybe she doesn't know. Maybe she just says weird things sometimes for no reason," he said with a glance at Stiles like _Stiles_ should know what it's like to live that way.

"In addition to the chronic dryness in only one of her eyes? Because I know a wink when I see one, Derek Hale, and the good doctor does not strike me as someone who goes around winking at people all willy-nilly." He flapped a hand to drive the point home.

Derek opened the door to the donut shop, then braced a hand on Claudia's head so Stiles could duck low enough to get them both through the door. "'Willy-nilly?' Really?"

_"Not the point."_

"What is the point?"

"The _point_ is she's a potential ally. Which is not a bad thing all around, when you're us." A pack with two young werewolf families, and likely more to occur at some point. Danny's biological clock was ticking louder these days, if the melty look in his eyes whenever he saw Claudia was any indication. "At least we _like_ Dr. Chu," Stiles added, thinking of Deaton.

They ordered their donuts, then carried the bag to a booth. Derek plucked Claudia off of Stiles' shoulders and settled her in his own lap, as they would be "sharing" a donut (Derek would eat what Claudia couldn't finish, i.e. most of it).

"Fine," he picked up their conversation with a grudging tone. "I guess that could come in handy."

"How does she know, though?" Stiles said around a mouthful of tres leche donut.

Derek nabbed a piece of the blueberry donut Claudia was mauling. "She did take over Dr. Jordan's practice. That's who we saw when we were kids," he explained. "I wonder..." A look that was simultaneously frustrated and sad passed quickly over Derek's face and was gone.

Stiles knew Derek was thinking that it was something he'd never thought to ask his mother when she was alive, yet another on the long list of unanswered questions that he'd had no cause to consider before Claudia came into their lives.

"Hey," he said, reaching out a hand to cover Derek's. "We'll figure it out. We're good at that."

Derek smiled and turned his hand so that their fingers linked together. "I guess we are."

A small hand smacked down atop theirs. "Help too!" Claudia cried, and Derek snorted a laugh while Stiles grinned at her.

"You bet your ass, baby girl," he said.

**Author's Note:**

> The first in what will likely be a series of loosely-connected fics about this little pack-verse.
> 
> Dr. Chu is named after and based pretty directly on my dogs' veterinarian. Not because she would make a great pediatrician, but because if I had to choose someone who would 100% not freak out about werewolves, it would be Dr. Chu.


End file.
